


A thousand and one nights

by down



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millie's place isn't like anywhere Lucy has stayed before. </p><p>Set just after season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A thousand and one nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RidiculousMavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RidiculousMavis/gifts).



The nicest thing about Millie’s place was how very different it was - not just to the flat with Harry, but to Bletchley, to her family’s home before that; it was impossible to mistake it for anywhere else, even when the past imposed itself across the present she always knew it for a memory, even as she started from sleep with the air-raid sirens ringing through her head and the decade since she’d heard them. 

Maybe it was the perfume. Not the one - she’d worn on the train, that had vanished without Millie mentioning it again, and Lucy hadn’t felt she could bring it up by saying thank you. But there were several other carefully hoarded bottles, brought out on occasions with no discernible pattern when Millie decided she needed something more than just the trousers and the lipstick and all to stand out, or- something. They lingered in the air, a sweet hint of fragrance in every breath; Lucy wondered if Millie put a little on her clothes, to keep it there.

Millie managed to claim the very air around herself, somehow, but Lucy had seen her manage that in a muddy nightgown in the middle of the night in 1940, sirens ringing in the air and dozens of girls huddled down in one of the shelters, most hunched up as if keeping your shoulders about your ears could keep the bombs from hurting you. Normally people would chat, or sleep, try to make the most of it, but that night had come at the end of a hard day, no-one making progress on anything of use, and now the bombs falling closer and closer…

Millie had sat back against the wall, rolled her shoulders, and pulled out a packet of dog-eared cards from her dressing-gown, challenging the whole place to a game of poker, and somehow the mood in the shelter had pulled up, a determined kind of brightness claiming the space about Millie and then about the rest of them. And that certainly hadn’t been the perfume - just sheer force of will. 

Lying in the dark, Lucy stared across the room at the heap in the other bed, watching Millie breathing. The room was slightly chilly, but there were plenty of blankets on the bed, and even with the curtains drawn there was enough light filtering in to see the collection of things cluttering up the room. The whole landscape was different to the orderly place she had kept for Harry, and she’d had little to take to Bletchley even if there had been space for it. When she’d first stayed, Millie had told her they could try organising the place, if it bothered her - ‘I’m not sure how, but I’m sure we’d manage it. Or we could call Susan in, I’m sure she could find some way of fitting it all together if we called it a puzzle…’ 

“No, thank you,” Lucy had said, and she smiled now, remembering the sigh of relief. “It doesn’t bother me. It feels… warm.” 

Between the shapes and the scent the whole place was very much Millie’s, and safe, and…

Lucy shifted, trying to push the thought away, and on the other side of the room Millie turned over. “Can’t sleep, darling? Do you want the light?” 

“No - I’m fine, please, go back to sleep.” Curling tighter in the bed, Lucy tried to keep her voice soft and sleepy. 

She didn’t manage to sound sleepy enough, though, as there was a creaking of bedsprings and then Millie was a shadow moving across the room, and the mattress bent rather alarmingly as she sat by Lucy’s hip. A warm hand rested on Lucy’s arm, and she let herself slide with the angled mattress, so she was curved about Millie. “Not remembering anything?” 

“Thinking, not remembering.” Lucy let her eyes slide shut, and it was only mostly true; the bare furniture of the hut she’d slept in at Bletchley was lurking behind her eyelids. “...It would have been nice if Bletchley had been more…” 

She lost the meaning of her sentence even as she started, and trailed off into silence. Of course Bletchley hadn’t been anything like this, not at all, except-

“With all of my rubbish?” Millie laughed, voice slightly husky with the sleep she should be having. “Or is it that you like the sharing, but without the war to cause it?” 

“I like it here,” Lucy admitted, voice soft. “...I like living with you.” 

Neither of them mentioned Harry. He had been a comfort, once, asleep beside her in the dark. Or so she’d thought, at least at the start, but it was nothing to the comfort of this. 

Maybe that was nothing to do with Harry, and all that he’d lacked, and everything to do with Millie pressing a gun into her hand, a kiss to her forehead. Millie racing through the streets to find Susan - raising that pistol and using it. 

“That’s all to the good, then, because I’ve missed having someone around to talk to in the middle of the night.” Millie’s hand landed on her hair, then, and stroked it gently. “You’re welcome to call this place home as long as you want, you know. Or we could find a bigger place, together. Or, well, not bigger, perhaps, but one with actual bedrooms and a real kitchen…” 

“I like listening to you sleep,” Lucy admitted, and she hoped Millie couldn’t see the way her cheeks flushed. “It’s - I don’t mind. I like it here.” 

Again, that warm hand stroked over her hair, and Lucy relaxed into the bed. “Then you do as I say, and call it home. Okay?” 

“...Okay.” 

“Now, are you going to sleep, or should I put the kettle on? I can find the cards if you want to beat me again.”

“Won’t tea keep us awake?” 

“We’re awake anyway, so I don’t suppose it makes much difference.” Millie patted her on the head one last time, then stood. “Or I think I have a little cocoa left, stashed away somewhere…” 

“Would you tell me about your travelling?” Lucy sat up, and wrapped her arms about her knees, as Millie turned on one lamp and headed for the stove. “Apart from the war, my life has been so- normal. But you’ve been so many places…” 

“I don’t remember them half as well as I’d like, some days. Not back here, London outside the windows…” This time Millie’s laugh was forced. “Except the bits I’d rather not remember, of course.” 

“Then tell me about the good parts. And maybe I can help you remember them. And - I can think of your adventures, instead of-” 

Millie looked back, face still lovely in the dim light, and rolled her shoulders back - just like in the shelter, those years ago, setting herself to a task. “Well, then. I suppose I should start at the beginning. It might take a year to tell you, you know.” 

“A thousand and one nights?” Lucy asked, feeling herself start to smile as well. 

“Perhaps! But which version of Arabian Nights have you read?” Millie smiled at her, eyes sparkling. “Did it have all the naughty bits in, or was it one of the versions the translators tidied up? Or one that added extra detail, some versions thought there wasn’t enough.” 

Lucy flushed, but giggled, sitting back in her bed and wrapping her dressing-gown about her shoulders. “Are there naughty bits in your stories?”

“Oh, a few, maybe.” She stirred both mugs, and came back, dropping down next to Lucy on the bed. “I don’t think we’ll get to any of them tonight, though. Not if I start at the beginning…”

\---

The next morning, Lucy woke with her dressing gown still about her shoulders, but curled into bed with the covers over her as well - and Millie curled beside her, fast asleep and breathing softly. It was the most rested Lucy had felt for months, even though she had no idea when she had fallen asleep. And they had barely managed to get out of England in Millie’s recounting of her adventures - there was a lot left to tell, a lot of quiet nights with something now to fill them. 

Carefully she slipped out from under Millie’s arm and the bed, and headed for the kitchen; by the time Millie woke, there was breakfast for the two of them ready on a tray. 


End file.
